CADEL ON THE BACK FOOT ?

Despite carrying the fight to Wiggo , Cadel lost a minute to finish 3+mins down for the day ! Not a disaster but it must be worrying the fans and giving a little relief to the Sky Team !  What is going through Sky's thoughts after stage 11? Currently the situation is that of " It's the Sky's Race to lose "!

Froome has shown that he is a strong climber and had a lot of energy left  in the tank at the 4km to finish , when he accelerated away from Wiggo ! Chris Froome also demonstrated that he is controled by Team orders when he sat up so as to shepherd Wiggo to within sight of the line ! Chris then went on the attack to achieve the third place for the day , something tells me, had he had his way , he would have come in first !

From reading :  http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/froome-breaks-from-the-script-at-la-toussuire  and what i saw on the TV  i get the impression that Froomy will be getting numerous Job Offers if he can break the 3 year contract that already exists . Question though is , would he be happy as the captain of another team , or would he be better used in Grand tours for Sky as the Captain  ?

BACK TO Cuddles , tough day in the office on Stage 11 leads into a 220km Medium Mountain day with two cat 1 climbs before the 80km point of the Stage 12 day . Seeing the sweat roll off Cadel last night makes one wonder how it will effect his desire to attack today and carry the fight to Sky ?

TJ Van Garderen , in the White Maillot , is certainly a revelation , he was constantly with Cadel during the attack on the Col Glandon and stuck with him until the finish line . One thing that came to me , is that when in a Paceline , racers tend to half wheel to get the best of the draught effect , but Cadel seemed to go it alone as did TJ , when i would have thought closer proximity was possible to mutual benefit ?

As the saying goes " WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH , THE TOUGH GET GOING "! If Team Sky thinks that they are home and free then YOU are the Guy to show them who is a DIGGER !

It's never over until " The fat lady sings " folks , so sit back and enjoy the show !

During the next days we will see your indomitable spirit carry you through the adversities ahead !

Cadel as i told you at Les Chablets after the finish of the Dauphine Libere ,   " Be the best that you Can ! That is ALL we Aussies expect " ! Still holds mate !

DIDN'T WANT TO PODIUM !

Watched in disbelief as the four away got to the " kite " marking the 1 km to go , with 13secs lead , and then they gave up the race to the sprinters ! During the last three kilometers , it was clear , that these guys were unable to agree about getting to the last few metres , before deciding who would be on the podium tonight ! That the Belgian racer ,Ghyselink , racing with Cofidis colours , was eager to get to the finish line was clear , since he took off and left the other three in his wake , but in the slight uphill that was the false flat racing alone, he faded into the first fifty home .  Read later elsewhere , that some suspect he would not have been able to hold off  Urtasun of Euskadi ! Will he get an award as the " Most Combatative Racer " today ? Who knows ? Who cares ?

Had those four worked together , they would have been " Podium Material " , certainly one of them would have gone in the " History books "as Etappe winner ! Oh yes , they had to get to the line before a thwarted peloton who at 40+ km were 1 1/2 mins behind and at 10km were 1 min behind and at 4km were still 28sec behind ! Don't tell me they were under team orders to " STUFF " the bookmakers , that their teams would have been in trouble , had they stayed away for a victory ? The Euskadi guy , Urtasun , was interviewed on Eurosport Extra but as he was speaking in Spanish , goodness knows how he felt , since i do not understand the language .

Recall being at the Bellinzona South area on the Tour de Suisse route , some years back , and cheered Matt White , Mick Rogers , Comezzo and Oscar Freire as they chased past on the way to the Podium ! Oscar hopped a lane separator and took off , 10+km from the finish and Comezzo worked for a while with the Aussies but managed to get in 7th , but where were my mates as the Peloton swept them up within metres of the finish line ? After several hundred kilometres of racing there is rarely much left in the tank and it is hard to continue the fight when you are suddenly on your own ? Having watched the four pass i had rushed to a bar thinking i would see a fight to the finish but i could not tell you now who the racers were that separated Oscar from Comezzo !

Well it is easy being an " Armchair Critic " ! Even when i have ridden the day's Etappe , i still do not have a real feeling for the difficulties the Racers endure ! explains why even with the wind behind me the best i can hope for these days , is to be within 20% longer on the route  !